Fireflies
by Perpetually amused
Summary: By day they hate each other but by night? They still hate each other. So let their dreams reveal their subconscious desires. One-shot


**Author's Note: Just to clarify, the large sections once they've fallen asleep are dreams.**

_"I'd like to make myself believe that planet Earth turns, slowly,_

_It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep,_

_'Cause everything is never as it seems"_

"You asshole!" Bella shouted, her face turning slightly red with anger. The victim of her hate just smirked and ran a hand through his messy bronze hair. His calm seemed to infuriate Bella even more, which was saying something because she was already shaking, she was so made. Edward, the other argue-ee advanced on her.

"Listen here Swan, I don't owe you anything, okay? You're a loser, you've always been a loser and you probably will always _be_ a loser." He jabbed a finger in her face, as if punctuating every word.

"Wow, that's original, calling me a loser. I'm sure no one's heard that one before!" Bella narrowed her eyes and glared at Edward. The crowd surrounding them swelled as it attracted more people.

"Swan, you suck." Edward crossed his arms, inwardly wincing at the fact that, no; he didn't have the best comebacks.

Bella raised an eyebrow at him and said in a low voice,

"You wish." Then she turned heel and stalked off through the crowd, leaving Edward spluttering. A round of wolf-whistles and catcalls were made but what no one noticed was that some emotion flashed briefly across Edward's face before he composed his features into a mask of disgust.

Alice looked despairingly between her best friend's retreating back, and her brother, who was standing in the middle of the lunchroom, no doubt sulking about not being able to get the last word in. She turned to Jasper and sighed sadly.

"Why can't those two get along?" Jasper laughed and squeezed her hand.

"I'm pretty sure Bella's first words were, 'Mommy! Edward's bugging me!' so I don't think this is a new issue." His blue eyes were glinting in amusement. Unlike his girlfriend, he found the rivalry funny. Then again it wasn't his best friend and his brother fighting.

Alice pouted, "I know but… I mean, how did the argument get started this time anyways?" Jasper scrunched up his face, trying to remember the cause of the most recent dispute between the two.

"I believe it had something to do with Edward dropping his cookie in Bella's spaghetti by accident and refusing to apologize." Alice grimaced.

"Oh yeah, right." She then glared at the cookie, which was sitting innocently on the table.

Later that night…

Edward tossed his pillow onto the bed, seething. Alice had found it necessary to have a "talk" with him about his behavior with Bella. It took two to tango! He couldn't control the girl, if she wanted to be a bitch about everything, that wasn't his problem! And besides, _she_ should've been the one apologizing to _him_. Her spaghetti had ruined a perfectly good cookie! Edward grumbled under his breath and flopped onto the bed. He tried to get that infuriating girl out of his head, and slowly but surely, he managed to succumb to sleep and let dreams overtake him.

_Edward was sitting in a meadow. It was peaceful there and he felt completely and utterly relaxed, just smelling the aroma of the wildflowers perfuming the air and hearing the river and the rustling of the bushes._

_ Wait… the rustling of the bushes? Edward sat up and looked around, blearily blinking his eyes open and letting them adjust to the sun. Out from the path in the forest appeared none other than Bella Swan. She didn't seem terribly surprised to see him there. In fact, one side of her lips curved up into a smile. _

_ Edward found himself distracted by her clothes. She had on a dress, with a free-flowing navy blue top, that was much like a peasant blouse, but it fell off the shoulders, exposing much of her white creamy skin. The bottom was tight, like a pencil skin, and a light blue, with a slit up the side. And she was barefoot. Edward couldn't help but stare at her feet, convinced that she was not the Bella Swan he knew, but instead a woodland sprite. _

_ Without ever really making a conscious decision to, he stood up and began to move towards her, looking at her face now. Had she always been that beautiful? For now he noticed the redness of her lips, the sparkle in her big eyes, the sexy wildness of her free-flowing chestnut hair. Edward drew Bella to him and kissed her on the lips. It was not the rough, lust-filled kiss that he gave all the girls he dated. It was full of love and passion. He reached up and stroked one of her cheekbones, reveling in how smooth and soft her skin felt. At this point, the real world Edward, the conscious Edward started to awake. And panic._

_ Dream Edward bent down on one knee, while inside Edward was screaming, "What? No! Wake up!" But instead in the dream he began to speak._

_ "Bella, I love you with all my heart, you're all I've ever wanted and I will always want you. " At this he pulled a velvet black box out of his pocket. The part of Edward that was awake couldn't help but stop and watch. And he felt a strange bit off happiness from the scene… NO! That wasn't possible._

_ His lips were moving and saying the words he both dreaded and adored. "Bella Swan, will you do me the honor of being my wife?" _

_ Instead of saying yes or no, Bella opened her mouth and a familiar beeping sound came out of it. _What the hell?_ Edward thought… and then_

With a jolt he woke up.

Edward sat up ramrod straight, not even bothering to silence his alarm that had managed to spontaneously go off at midnight. His copper hair stuck straight up in disarray and his green eyes were wide with both frustration and relief that the dream had ended. But most of all, he was freaked out, because he had wanted to words out of dream Bella's lips to be "yes."

That Same Night…

Bella counted sheep in her head, losing track almost immediately. But her mind was still whirling in that hyperactive way that it would when she had just argued with Edward Cullen. She always tried to find points in it where she could've had better comebacks. Of course, it was no use after the fact. But she couldn't seem to stop herself. She did have to admit, she was pretty proud of herself for having gotten Cullen with that last quip, but the thought of him still made her blood boil. Dropping his cookie in her spaghetti, leaving the crumbs everywhere! She just _knew_ it wasn't an accident! She knew it! Huffily she turned over on her side and concentrated on sleep.

_Bella lazily blinked her eyes, breathing in the salty air. A slight wind teased her hair, but even in her cover-up dress, she wasn't cold. A faint smile played across her lips and she squished the sand beneath her toes, feeling the surf rise up and tickle them. She admired the sky across the water, it was shot through with pinks and gold and oranges, then at the horizon, it was fading to a deep purple. Bella was all alone on the beach. Well, almost all alone._

_ She felt a hand take hers but she didn't start in surprise. She just turned her head to look at Edward, who she knew would be the one next to her. Despite the beauty of the beach at dusk, he wasn't looking at the sky, he was only looking at her, as if he could never get his fill of the sight of her. She blushed, a beautiful reddish tint spreading across her cheeks. Bella longed to raise her hand and run it through Edward's bronze mane of hair, but she didn't want to stop holding his hand so she let it be. _

_ Edward pulled her closer and Bella snuggled into his side, feeling completely and utterly contented. It felt as if nothing could go wrong with the world. She brought her lips up to Edward's cheek and lightly kissed it. Edward nuzzled his face in her hair, breathing in softly the scent of the strands. _

_ "I love you, you know that?" He whispered in Bella's ear. She shivered in delight and nodded, feeling happiness fill her up until she could just burst._

_ "I love you too." Edward picked up a stick of driftwood that was lying between them and began to write in the sand in front of their curled up feet. Curious, Bella tore her eyes away from him and looked at the patch of sand. He drew a heart and in it wrote "E loves B." _

_ Bella hugged Edward closer than ever, grinning widely at his picture. And so they sat on the beach until the orange faded to black. And while the surf came past the drawing many times, it never erased it._

Back in her room, Bella had a faint smile, even in sleep, and looked like a girl in love.

At school the next morning…

Edward walked through the school hallways in a daze, unaware that Bella was walking much the same way, and that they were on a collision course. As they came to face each other, everyone in the hallway turned, obviously expecting a replay of yesterday. But what they did startled all the people watching. Upon seeing each other, they both turned red, stammered out a few words, then turned and ran in an opposite direction.

Alice had watched their exchange and frowned in total confusion. She had been bracing herself for a shout-off, not… whatever that had been. "What's gotten into them?" She asked Jasper. Jasper just shrugged, smiling secretly, for he knew that those two would soon realize how they actually felt about each other, which was a far cry from hate, something he had figured out long ago.


End file.
